


UnShelled

by Jim Creeggan (JimCreeggan)



Category: Freak the Mighty - Rodman Philbrick, Unwind Dystology - Neal Shusterman
Genre: Crossover, Other, Unwinding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 15:41:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30007164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JimCreeggan/pseuds/Jim%20Creeggan
Summary: In a crossover universe between UnWind and Freak The Mighty, Kevin is still going to die, but Max thinks shelling might be the solution.
Relationships: Max/Freak (Freak The Mighty), Max/Kevin (Freak The Mighty)





	UnShelled

The image had stayed in Max’s head for ages. The image of Kevin, spraying chili powder into his father and captor’s eyes, sending him back to jail where he belonged. If this new law passed, there could be the possibility that his father could be unwound and shelled. Killer Kane, Killer Kane, a parts pirate soon to have no brain. He hadn’t known what shelling was originally, when he’d first heard of it on the news, so he’d asked Grim. 

“Shelling’s a horrible thing. They unwind you and then throw out the brain. You’re not alive in a divided state if they shell you, I sure think,” Grim declared.

“Of course you’re not alive without a brain,” Max said. “No different than being a zombie then.” Even though Max was pretty sure he had no brain- he was a massive butthead. He wondered- would he want shelling to be his father’s fate, or was it too cruel?  _ Better than the death penalty. At least his stupid body would be helping somebody.  _

“I heard the only type that shell is that foreign unwinding place,” Gram said with a shake of her hand. “What do they call it… The Zah Dey?”

“It’s the  _ Dah Zey _ ,” Grim corrected. “Something for flesh market.”

“Kevin said it’s Burmese,” Max interrupted. Kevin had… a very strong stance on unwinding. 

“How unchivalrous! It’s a horrible practice, and should never be performed on anyone nor supported,” he claimed. “I know they can’t unwind me because I’m ‘unclean’. Well, I’ll show them unclean! I’ll protest against unwinding until this nonsense stops!” 

Max had always admired his friend’s courage and way to speak his mind. He admired that he even  _ had  _ a mind, something Max always felt that he had lacked. Freak was his mind; together, they were Freak The Mighty, nine feet tall and with the biggest brain you’d ever seen. Even separate, they were a menace. Freak had led to the arrest of a notorious parts pirate, and Max had passed the eighth grade! They were unstoppable! 

Max thought about unwinding a lot. No doubt if he’d been adopted out instead of taken in by Grim and Gram he’d be a pile of organs by now- a  _ big  _ pile of organs. He was probably worth a lot on the black market, an extremely tall, boeuf 13 year old, the prime age for unwinding. Maybe his dad would have raised him a tithe if he “found the light” earlier. Max chuckled at that. The thought of him, a tithe! He’d probably be the biggest tithe of all time. Maybe they could put him in Ginny’s World Record book or whatever it was called. 

Max also thought about parts pirateering. When your father was someone who was so cruel to send his own wife off to be unwound by the Burmese Dah Zey, you had to. Iggy and Loretta were still tied up in that business, and Max vowed to stay away from them for that very reason. Even if Loretta had saved his life once. Maybe she was just eyeing up his parts. She always acted like she was, anyways. 

One day, Kevin declared that he had a quest. “We must go to where I am to receive my robot body! To the Medical Research Center, noble steed!” 

And so Freak hopped up on Max’s shoulders and they became Freak The Mighty once again as Max galloped off into the sunrise with the smaller boy on his back. This was Max’s favorite thing in the world; the wind blowing through his hair, Kevin on his shoulders, off on a wild quest to who knows where. He loved Kevin, Freak, whoever the hell he was, he knew he did. He wasn’t sure what that love meant or what kind of love it was, but it was there. His butthead was too stupid to figure out what it was. The only way would be to ask Freak, and then he’d know that Max was a butthead too stupid to understand love, and then where would they be?  
But Kevin never treated Max like a butthead. He seemed to be the one person in his life who understood that even if he was one, there was no need to treat him like one. Teach the big goon to read and write, eek eek. Then call him a noble steed. 

“The castle looks just fabulously ravishing today, doesn’t it?” Freak said from atop his steed. 

“Ravishing? Hungry?”

“No, that’s famished. Ravishing means beautiful, alluring, bewitching…”

“So all the things your mom is?”  
Kevin smacked Max with one of his crutches. “The noble steed will not make comments about his rider’s mother.”  
Max untied one of Kevin’s shoes playfully, a game they always played together. Kevin always pretended it ticked him off, but Max knew it didn’t. Then when he got off of him, Max would tie his shoe back up. Kevin was originally surprised he could even tie a shoe. 

“So, when are you getting your robot body?” Max asked curiously.

“Why do you ask?”

“I’m really nervous for you,” Max admitted. “I mean, you’re getting a bionic body. That’s pretty freaky.”

Kevin sighed. “Max, it’s time you know. There is no robot body. It’s just as fictional as Arthurian legend. I came up with it to help myself cope with the inevitable, the inevitable being my soon but sure demise. It’s called manifestation. If I lie to myself enough, it becomes true to me.”

Max didn’t understand most of what Freak had said, but seeing the tears in his eyes told him most of what he needed to know. “You’re… going to die?”  
Kevin nodded. “My organs are just getting too big for my body, and since I refuse unwound organs, I’m not going to last long.”

“Why don’t you just take them?” Max asked, trying to plead with him. “The kids got unwound anyways.”

“Do you know how hard it’d be to find organs small enough for my body?” Kevin asked. “They’d need to unwind a three year old. And they’d have to make it so the organs couldn’t grow either,” he explained. “It’d be far too complicated. And possibly illegal.”  
“But you can’t die!” Max exclaimed. “Without you, I’m just… The Mighty. I need my Freak.”

“That which comes cannot be avoided,” Kevin said seriously. 

But Max would find a way to stop it. He knew he could.

First, he needed money. Lots of it. But where does one get lots of money? He swore to never be a criminal, but that might be the only way. Kevin would have called what he was doing a quest of the unnoble variety, but he needed the money. Enough money to bribe someone who probably had all the money in the world. 

So, he ransacked all the abandoned houses in town he could find. Eventually he’d stolen one, two thousand dollars? He’d been able to find a diamond necklace he’d been able to pawn off, and he had his cash. Now, time to go to the people he’d needed. 

“Loretta? Loretta, you in there?” Max asked, banging on the door. Eventually, the woman with the fake eyelashes and droopy lips greeted Max tiredly. 

“What do you want, kid?” She asked. “No, I’m not lending you money.”

“Oh, I’m not asking for money,” he said with a smirk. “Quite the opposite. You’re going to become very rich.”

“So, let me get this straight…” Loretta thought, long and hard. “You’re going to  _ pay  _ us to take you to the Dah Zey?”

“Well, not quite. The money is to bribe the higher ups into letting me do what I want. But yes, I’m submitting myself to you as an AWOL. No one has to know, and the Dah Zey will still pay you.”

“Well, your plan’s crazy, but you got a deal, kid,” 

Soon enough, he was on a plane to Burma, going to be unwound… maybe. He could admit he was scared out of his shorts, but this was something he needed to do, or else innocent lives would be over. He must do this.

Loretta and Iggy wouldn’t be making this journey with him, as they claimed that they were too small in the parts pirateering business to meet the owners of the harvest camps themselves. According to them, they didn’t even know what happened at the harvest camps, at least no more than anyone else knew. It had recently come out that the Dah Zey experimented on children, when the doctor had publicly made an appearance with his chimpanzee-footed assistant. Max had bigger dreams than being put on postcards, but he had a similar goal to Mr. Chimpanzee. To become an experiment of the doctor’s.

When Max arrived at the Dah Zey, they threw him in a cell, by himself. “Volunteers get special permission. You don’t go with others.”

Max wasn’t bothered by the man’s poor English; he was just anxious to meet the doctor. Only then did he realize how miserable the existence of the prisoners at Dah Zey were. 

Despite being a volunteer, Max was given very little food or water, and only a bucket to eliminate himself in. For entertainment, he was given a crappy old TV with only movies buttheads would ever want to watch, and especially enjoy. But he put them on anyways, because he  _ was  _ a butthead. I mean, what kind of butthead would turn themselves into parts pirates for a friend?

Apparently an impressive butthead, as later Max received a private audience with the doctor. 

“My name is Doctor Rodín,” he said, sitting down. “And you purposefully… volunteered yourself for experimentation?” 

“Yes, although you’re only allowed to experiment on me if you do exactly what I want and as I say.” 

The doctor snorted. “And why should I?”

“Because.” Max took out wads and wads of cash from his pockets. “I’ll make you very rich indeed.”

“Boy, I see more than that in a day,” he said, and Max couldn’t tell if he was bluffing or not. “But I love to meet someone with my same interest in human experimentation. So, pitch your idea to me.”

“Imagine,” Max started. “A nine foot tall giant, with a brain just as big to match. He’s super smart, like, super duper smart. He could probably invent world peace or something. Or something that’d make somebody rich.”

“I’ve already done experiments for giants,” he scoffed. “They went poorly, though. The person survived, but they’re completely bedridden. I’ll have to come up with another way than stacking spinal columns.”

“Sir, I’m already 7 feet tall, and I’m only 14. Imagine how much taller I’ll be when I’m older. Or you could give me, let’s say, a two foot spinal column addition.”

The doctor looked intrigued. “So, what exactly are you proposing?”

“I have a friend who’s a supergenius, but he’s going to die soon, his organs grow but his body doesn’t. So, why don’t you shell him…”  
“And then shell you…”

“And then put Kevin’s brain inside my body. Oh, yeah, Kevin’s the supergenius. And, we’ll be normal enough that we can pass as a normal person, someone who could maybe publicize your experiments as not cruel, but rather innovating.” Saying all these things made Max sick, but it had to be done to save Kevin’s life. 

“I see. And what shall we call you?”

“Freak the Mighty.”

“I like that.”

Kevin woke up one day, no memory of what had happened to him or where he was. 

That was when he noticed how  _ big  _ he felt. His hands felt heavier, his feet reached further down in the bed than they ever had before, and when he sat up, he felt two tons of extra weight. Well, not two tons, but that was what hyperboles were for. 

He wasn’t himself. This wasn’t his body. He was Max. 

He noticed a doctor looking down on him curiously. “Hello, Freak The Mighty.” 


End file.
